Mountain climbers, tree climbers, window washers and others frequently wear safety harnesses for obvious safety reasons. If the wearer should fall, a harness, tethered to a secure object, can arrest the fall and prevent injury. While the following discussion is confined to mountain climbing, for which this invention is primarily intended, the usefulness of the invention for other related purposes will be apparent.
It is common practice for mountain climbers to secure themselves, by means of a relatively elastic climbing rope tether, to chocks, pitons, screws or other devices placed in rock or ice along the climbing route. The free end of the rope is secured to a climbing harness so that in the event of a fall, the climber is arrested before striking a ledge or the like. The elasticity of climbing rope is such that, if used properly, the restraining upward force is low enough to halt the climber without doing injury to him. A seat harness is normally used; in addition, the use of chest harness is advisable to prevent back injuries that a belt harness alone can cause in a fall at certain body attitudes.
The climbing equipment industry is a highly technical, well developed one undergoing continuous change. Safety, weight, comfort and cost are among the factors by which new items of equipment are judged in the marketplace. Climbing harnesses themselves are well developed and enjoy a good safety record. While there are many different designs on the market and disclosed in the patent literature, a typical seat harness includes a waist belt connected to leg loops which pass through the crotch and under each hip. In an upright fall, the leg loops support most of the body weight, while the belt supports the weight at other attitudes. A typical arrangement is shown in German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2824734; others appear in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,979,153, 3,176,793, 4,121,688, and 4,318,502. The last mentioned patent is typical of many seat harnesses on the market today in that the leg loops have adjustment buckles to accommodate users of various sizes. Thus, the leg loop webbing must be cut to size, or stocked in different sizes, for various users It would be advantageous to provide climbers with a seat harness having automatic leg loop adjustability. In this regard, U.S. Pat. No. 2,979,153 is of interest, for it shows a safety suit wherein the leg and shoulder loops are in effect nooses which constrict under tension to the wearer's dimensions.
In all of the prior art of which we are aware, harnesses formed from webbing have sewn seams whose strength may be critical. Not only can such seams provide weak points not even approaching in strength that of the webbing itself, the step of producing such seams also adds to manufacturing costs.
In view of the foregoing, an object of this invention is to provide climbers with a climbing seat harness having self-adjusting leg loops.
Another object is to avoid sewn seams in a climbing belt. A related object is to maximize the strength of web-to-web connections in a harness; another is to simplify the manufacture of the harness.
A further object of the invention is to produce the waist belt and both leg loops of a climbing belt from a single length of webbing, again, to simplify manufacture and improve harness strength.